Skills:Lightning & Storm Safety and Weather Prediction

I had a bolt of lightning come down toodarnclose a good while ago.
On the far side of the hill from the truck, it was misty drizzly all morning.
No thunder, no lightning, just foggy drizzly forest morning.
Rain started, a few big fat drops, I started jogging back towards the truck, since my rain poncho was in said truck.
My buddy was 50 yards or so behind me. As I crested the hill, all and I mean all, of the hair on my body stood up. As if someone rubbed me with a giant balloon.
I dove for the ground.
As I was in midair, there was a snap/flash/bang/crash/boom all at once.
My friend told me that I bounced back up in the air, I don't remember it and didn't feel it. He thought I was dead for sure.
I looked to my left and a tree, 30-40' away, was split open(like in one of the photos above) open and the lower branch was on fire.
I wiggled my toes and fingers, when I realized that they worked fine, I took off at a dead run for the truck. Rich said that he never saw me move that fast, before or since.
Never a rumble of thunder or flicker of a warning. The wind hadn't picked up or reversed, and the rain was just a pitter patter of big drops...not enough to get you wet.

Saw ball lightning at the Montauk airport one night. We thought it was a plane coming in to land, but there was no sound. It got closer and closer. Just about the time we were starting to freak, it disappeared. Went out.
Very strange.

Out on the boat, on the fly bridge, head 14' above the water a T-Storm caught up with us...couldn't outrun it. I swear the lightning was going up from the water. It could have been a trick of the light/reflection thing...but we saw it more than once.

I saw a family that got hit in a mall parking lot, on tv.
Big light poles all around, the lightning hit them.
They were all holding hands, mom got it the worst.
She was wearing rubber soled sneakers.
The lightning arced around the rubber sole down to the ground.
They showed the sneakers on the program.
Big ol' burnt hole in the side by the ball of the foot.

Another good reason to get out of the tent and into the vehicle (if you can) is that the vehicle provides you with some more protection from falling branches and trees.
If it aint the lightning the winds will knock stuff down.
 
I apologize if I'm hijacking the thread, but maybe Watchful, or someone else, can describe the physics of how lightning strikes. I ask because I live in an old 1880's farmhouse; when I bought it, it had an old but good lightning rod system installed. When I put on a new metal roof, I carefully took down the lightning rods and reinstalled them when I was finished. The rods and roof are all connected by a heavy braided copper cable that is well grounded in the earth.

My understanding is that lightning occurs when there is an imbalance of positive ions in the atmosphere that unload towards the ground. What the lighning rod system supposedly does is safely carry those positive ions to ground before a discharge occurs in the immediate area...it doesn't actually "catch" a lightning bolt and carry it to ground. Is this true or false, can anyone explain it better?

This may just be an arcane piece of old scientific technology that has proven to be useless, since I don't see anybody installing lightning rods on new construction. At any rate, I don't think it hurts my house to have it, looks kind of neat too. The river valley I live in seems to be a cauldron for thunder and lightning storms.

Three quick war stories: In 1962, I was taking a cross-country bus trip. We went through the Texas Panhandle at night and drove into a dry lightning storm. For about half an hour outside the bus, it looked and sounded like we were driving through an artillery barrage. Very spectacular. The bus driver just kept on truckin', there wasn't anyplace for us to get out and seek shelter anyway.

My area isn't known for tornadoes, but in the late 80's we had one touch down briefly a mile from here and took down a big maple tree. I remember looking at the sky beforehand, the clouds were not going west to east, they were going around in a big circle and had a definite green tinge. Last year, we had another touch down east of here on the shore of Lake Champlain, it pretty well trashed a marina. Both of these twisters were very brief events.
 
Coldwood said:
I apologize if I'm hijacking the thread, but maybe Watchful, or someone else, can describe the physics of how lightning strikes. I ask because I live in an old 1880's farmhouse; when I bought it, it had an old but good lightning rod system installed. When I put on a new metal roof, I carefully took down the lightning rods and reinstalled them when I was finished. The rods and roof are all connected by a heavy braided copper cable that is well grounded in the earth.
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Thanks, Coldwood, I'll do my best. I'm going from memory here, and invite folks to correct or amend. I should caution that there's still a fair amount about lightning that isn't well understood. Sadly, one of those things is what causes it in the first place.

The overall nature of lightning is a lot like static electricity. You know how you rub your feet on the carpet in your socks and then touch a doorknob and get a pop? Picture yourself as a rainy cloud, and your carpet as dry, warm air. Your doorknob is a tree. Or a house. Or a house with a lightning rod system.

In both scenarios, you build up a static charge: this is high voltage, with no amperage. No current means it isn't flowing, hence: static. As the charge builds up inside you, you carry it around until you touch something that can ground it. A doorknob, a tree, a house, etc. Bzzt. It jumps from you into the object. in static electricity, as it gains current, it loses voltage fast. That's why you don't get electrocuted; but lightning of course can retain enough voltage and amperage to kill.

There are a few kinds of lightning. Cloud-to-cloud is when a charge builds up in a cloud, and the cloud encounters a cloud with an opposite charge. The lightning connects from one to the other: these are the spectacular strokes of lightning that move sideways across what seems like the whole sky.

Cloud-to-ground are the big vertical bolts that strike down. This is caused when there's a positive / negative difference between the cloud and the ground.

As the charges become close together, a "stepped leader" forms from the cloud. This is like a worm of particles wiggling out of the cloud looking to make a connection to the ground. As it gets closer, a "streamer" can rise up from the eventual target and cause a fairly widespread electrical field all around it--this is the tingly sensation a lot of us have been reporting in our stories. It makes the hair on your body stand up.

If and when these two meet, they connect basically to form a virtual wire that connects the circuit, and then BAM. Lightning.

There are other kinds, too: heat lightning (which is lightning from over the horizon that you can see reflected in the moisture in the air, Elen's ball lightning, and so on, but the cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground are probably the most commonly seen.

Coldwood said:
My understanding is that lightning occurs when there is an imbalance of positive ions in the atmosphere that unload towards the ground. What the lighning rod system supposedly does is safely carry those positive ions to ground before a discharge occurs in the immediate area...it doesn't actually "catch" a lightning bolt and carry it to ground. Is this true or false, can anyone explain it better?
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I'm glad you said lightning rod system, because as you discovered, there's a whole lot more to it than the rod. There needs to be a network of rods on the roof, all bonded, which then form a continuous ground to the earth. A rod by itself obviously causes MORE damage.

What this system does is provide the streamer a clear-cut and fast way to meet the stepped leader. Your lightning protection system basically provides a shortcut for the positive charge, giving it a head start toward the cloud.

That's important, because it allows the leader and streamer the opportunity to meet well above your house, rather than through it! I found a pretty good step-by-step picture of the process here.

Coldwood said:
This may just be an arcane piece of old scientific technology that has proven to be useless, since I don't see anybody installing lightning rods on new construction. At any rate, I don't think it hurts my house to have it, looks kind of neat too.
Click to expand...

Here's where you'd be surprised. Lightning protection is VERY common in new structures and comprises parts of some electrical codes. Today's systems look quite a bit different (although there's no evidence they work better). I actually know the founder of Harger, who is probably today's leader in lightning protection products. Asking him about this stuff is like trying to take a sip of water from a firehose, though.

Remember that not all buildings require protection: just the tallest in the "area." There are actually calculations that assist architects and engineers determine how big that area is. If you're in a small building next to a large condo, you probably won't need protection as the condo's system covers you in its zone of protection.

But some don't consist of much more than some copper pieces connected by a bare copper wire around the roofline (or under the roof) that tie to the building GES (grounding electrode system) or plumbing. So you don't see them.
 
Sorry for posting so late, I have had a few calls with lightning. Out checking the cows back in the 80's in one of them freaky, fogging, snowy, thunderstorms, my brother and I enjoyed all the fog glowing and as someone else said flash bbzzzzz snap BOOM, kinda like standing in a blackpowder rifle cap, A few days we saw the tree that was hit, the fog was so thick we could see it then but it was around !00' away with a big scar down the side.

When in a strom don't forget about being close to fences my dad and I were out another time and my dad was opening a gate and there was a flash and I have the habit of counting til thunder. Anyhow, about the time i heard the thunder there was a little flash and a snap that jumped from the gate to my dad's hand, he was ok but he cussed alittle and shook his hand. It wasn't raining and seems like I counted about 5. Another time this happened to me, but it was like be shocked by an electric fence.

Also back in the days before P C's and surge protectors my family would un-plug the T V and un-hook the antenna. In a storm I was in the house and about to un-hook the antenna and the little splitter box for UHF and VHF blew up and shot parts all over the living room. we have had a few T Vs struck and had to take them to the shop.

I thought I saw or read somewhere that sometimes the lightning really is travelling upward.

Keep your head down, Pat
 
Thanks Watchful, excellent information as always. That link was especially informative for my situation :)
 
Colwood made my day! Thanks, sir!

omniviking said:
I thought I saw or read somewhere that sometimes the lightning really is travelling upward.
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That's not entirely wrong. The circuit (which is really what lightning is: a massive arc circuit) is formed at both ends: cloud and ground. So the riser travels upward, electrifying the air around it, and the leader travels downward. When they meet, there's your circuit: and the discharge (which is the last part of lightning) travels downward, negative to positive.
 
Why does Hollywood get these so terribly wrong?

I live in an area where they're reasonably well known. Not as frequent as some areas, like Tornado Alley, USA, but just as severe. It's something you have to expect every Spring and Summer: at least a dozen tornado watches, and maybe one warning somewhere in the area.

Here seems to be Hollywood's version: there's a lot of wind, and then a crisp and defined funnel cloud. When the tornado hits, it's like a huge vacuum cleaner that can do the most amazing things: throw solid objects like knives and embed them in wood, pull heavy objects upward and continue to tug at them, and it will never ever kill the family dog. Afterward, you see a lot of weird things stuck in trees, and maybe a kid's swingset laying perfectly upright in someone's front yard.

All of this is based on hearsay, as evidently producers don't ever venture outside California.

For those who haven't been through the process, here's a better description.

Storms and rain. Strong winds. Stronger winds. The skies get very black and dark. Winds get stronger: leaves and debris start moving horizontally and stick to your windows. Trees whip back and forth, and you expect to see their limbs snap (but they usually don't). A lawn chair from down the road tumbles up the street like a basketball.

Then, if you're lucky, the sirens sound. That's a bad sound, I don't care who you are. It's a Hell sound, and it's time to grab the kids, pets, and head downstairs or to a well-protected room with no windows and plenty of structural support.

The power goes out. Banging noises occur all over the house. The sound of the rain hitting the house is actually louder than the thunder.

Then the Sound. It's a powerful rumble. If the tornado passes by, skip to the next paragraph. If it hits your immediate area, the damage is instantaneous, like a bomb going off. Windows explode outward, walls are pulled down, and the roof lifts right off the nails holding it on. There's nothing to see but dust and debris. It's so bad you close your eyes, and feel needles stinging your skin, and you cling to something, anything, even if it's not nailed down, because you know it won't matter either way.

Then, in about two seconds, it's over. The winds die down quickly, but the rain pours down like a hose. The sky turns an unearthly green color. You rarely see the cloud, because by that time the debris cloud is swarming around you.

Afterward, there is nothing but debris. Streets, lawns, homes, are covered with trash equally. You may not be able to see your street due to everything piled on it. What's left of your home may consist only of one wall and lots of pink insulation everywhere. Hollywood never seems to get that right.

I know two people who survived being inside a tornado. One guy lived in an apartment and knew, when the sirens went off, that his little building wouldn't survive. He elected to run for the safety of his car and try to drive out of there (dumb? Yeah, but read on). He didn't make it to his car. He was blinded by the intensity of the rain and winds, and disoriented by the noise. He said that as he exited the building, his apartment building exploded. He dove to the ground, and clutched his fingers into the ground as the winds tore at him. His distinct recollection was pain, like acid was being poured on him for some reason.

Then it was over. He picked his head up, and saw that the upper floor of his building, where his apartment was, was destroyed: the roof collapsed into his unit. Other people inside were luckily unharmed. He found he was covered in leaves, and when he brushed them off, realized his shirt was gone: peeled right off his back. A neighbor asked if he was all right, because he was covered with blood. The debris sliced his skin with thousands of paper cuts, and while he was actually okay, he was a mess.

Realizing his apartment was destroyed, he decided to drive to a friend's house... and then noticed that his truck was completely destroyed. Even though he had lost everything, including his shirt, he just sighed and waited for assistance. As you might suspect, the Red Cross was there before the paramedics and police got there. He was able to stay with them while his renter's insurance sorted out the details.

Now my aunt has a helluva tale. Driving in Wisconsin with my cousins, the rain beat hard on their car. They decided they need to pull over, and saw one of Wisconsin's ubiquitous dinner clubs up ahead. Knowing they could get a meal there, it seemed like the ideal place to drive toward. Suddenly, my cousin (who was driving) lost control of the car. It swerved wildly left and right, and the windshield cracked across from right to left. Leaves and branches stuck to the car like glue.

Suddenly, he regained control of the car, and with the wiper whipping back and forth, he cleared enough leaves to see the road again, and found they were very close to the parking lot of the club. They pulled in, and were amazed to find Wisconsiners running up to the car to help them out of it and into the club. "What's going on," my aunt asked. "Lady," said one of the locals, "your car was in the tornado!" Evidently, the car drove right into the funnel.

Part two is next...
 
Okay, here's some stuff about tornados that even experienced bastards like myself don't know.

1. Don't bother opening the windows a crack. For a long time, people advocate opening windows a little during a tornado warning to prevent the house from blowing up. The theory is that when the low pressure cell of the funnel hits, the open windows allow the air to escape smoothly.

Errr... no. Your FIRST and ONLY responsibility during a warning (the sirens!) is to get your family to safety. Screw the effing windows: you don't want to be ANYWHERE near glass when a funnel hits, or you'll be picking the smaller bits out of your skin while the paramedics stop the bleeding on the bigger shards.

Fact is...the tornado's low pressure cell is like a bomb going off. Opening the windows a little bit or even a lot won't make a snot of difference in the differential. Analogy: your house is an inflated balloon. The tornado is a pin. Opening the windows is like slowly letting the air out of the balloon at the same instant someone jams the pin into it. Bang, either way.

2. All 50 states have experienced tornados. There is no place you can live in the US itself that hasn't experienced one. The state with the fewest tornados on record is Alaska.

3. What happens when a tornado hits at work? That's part 3, but one thing you don't do is go outside. I had a client who heard that a tornado was headed their way. Their solution to protect the employees? They pulled the fire alarm... meaning that in the midst of everything, the employees went outside into the parking lot as they've been taught to do. Luckily, the tornado past by overhead and no one was hurt--just soaked.

4. "We learned in school to sit down on the floor and cover our heads." Doesn't work. The real reason, per my own wife who's a teacher, is to make identification of the bodies easier afterward. Sick, eh? Schools know there is NOTHING they can do if a tornado hits a school, which is all glass and corridors. Well, *we* all thought it worked, didn't we?

5. If you're not a storm chaser, don't stand there and watch the stupid thing. While storm chasers have learned more about tornados in the last 20 years than people did over the last 200, some bad has come from it: hours of video footage has convinced a lot of lower-quartile folks that tornados are not a critical risk to life. I've known neighbors who heard the alarms and decided to go out and watch the funnel cloud approaching. Tornados can kill from a distance: they don't kill you directly--they send shards of glass and metal and wood your way at hundreds of miles an hour. If you wouldn't stand there and watch a nuclear bomb blast approach you, you shouldn't stand there and watch a tornado come toward you. Storm chasers know how they move, when they change direction, and so on--they know if they're safer or not. You don't. Use every second you have to get your family, seek shelter, and break out the flashlights, batteries, water, and first aid kits.
 
1. The moment the sirens kick off, get moving. Do a head count.

2. Grab the kids and pets. If you're like me, everyone in the family has a job to watch somebody else. That way little Timmy doesn't wander off. Little kids should grab pets, and littler kids should grab their favorite stuffed animal. Everyone has someone to collect.

3. Seek cover. If you have a basement or crawl, get into it. Position yourself in the smallest space you have under the home's main support. Most homes with basements have a central I-beam: be under it, close to the column or wall holding it up.

No basement or crawl? Get into an interior bathroom or closet, ideally one in the core of the house. No windows! If your bathroom is large and open, get into the tub.

4. Stay clear of windows. I can't say this enough, because this is most likely how you'll be killed. If damage occurs, cover the littlest ones with yourself; if there are no kids or pets, cover your head with your hands.

5. Stay down until the sirens are off.

6. Once the sirens turn off, check yourself and others for injury or panic.

7. Immediately, you (the rest of the family should stay under cover a little while longer) should glance out a window from a distance to see if the wind is still high. If so, double check your radio or TV to see if the storm has moved or another one is approaching fast behind it. If so, get back under cover.

8. All clear? Everyone should come out of cover. Pets and kids stay with an adult; one or more adults checks the house for damage carefully. Inside first; if the weather has let up, go out and look for damage to the exterior or any neighbors needing help.

If you live in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Florida, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, Illinois, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota or North Dakota, you are part of a lucky club that sees the most tornados (in that order!).

As a result, you MUST have the following:

1. A tornado plan. If the sirens go off, what does everyone in your home do? Do your kids know what to do? What about if you and the wife are not at home? Does your babysitter know? If you use a variety of sitters, do your kids know what to do? They might know better than the babysitter where to go and how to sit tight.

2. A plan at work. Your workplace probably does NOT have a tornado response plan. Get to the men's room and get into a stall. Or get into a stairwell, but make sure there's a staircase over your head in case the roof collapses in. Worst case, get under your desk--but stay clear of windows and doors. Even interior glass like sidelights are dangerous.

3. Your PSK must be ready for tornados. Actually, if you have a basement, consider locating a "tornado response kit" in your protected area. It should include, at a minimum:

a. Flashlight and/or LED lantern
b. Batteries for same
c. A weather radio - some now come with hand crank cell phone chargers. What an awesome idea! I want one.
d. First aid kit with lots of gauze and bandages
e. Water
f. With kids, keep a few toys that will keep them occupied. Some warnings can go up to 20 minutes, and I can tell you that bored kids become scared kids fast.
g. With pets, keep an old leash. This can be put on while you're waiting in the shelter area: most pets will naturally try to flee, and may dash out from cover. Odds are, they'll survive--but the tendency is for kids to dash after them to "rescue" Molly. That's bad. Leash the dogs and cats, and hold on to 'em.
h. Blankets, if it gets cold in your shelter. They can also be used if a tornado hits to prevent shock or hypothermia.
i. EDITED TO ADD: Heck yeah, a spare knife! What happens when the alarms go off at 3am and you forget to grab yours?
 
With lightning, don't forget that all of our commonly understood electrical laws are out the window. Even ohm's law is only valid in a narrow window of temperatures, voltages, etc. When you are dealing with lightning, you are talking 10's of millions of volts, and 100's of thousands of amps. Forget rubber. Lightning punches 10 or 20 miles through non-conductive air, a half an inch or an inch of rubber won't even slow it down.

Cars protect if they have metal all the way around you, that's called a Faraday cage. Convertible's don't protect, neither do tractors.

I've been close to a couple of strikes, one when I was in a car - I was in the back seat, just happened to turn around and boom! It hit about 50 ft. behind our car. Scared the @#$@ out of all of us! I saw blue for 10 minutes or so.... :D
 
I've been away from my computer most of this weekend, and won't be actively on again until tomorrow eve, but haqs a chance to check, and want to say: WOW! This thread is really blossoming beyond my wildest intentions. Great discussion and excellent info. Watchful, as always, you are providing fantastic information! Let's keep going! :thumbup:
 
Two tornado tales.

1. Wichita, KS, visiting some family. At a relatives' house, a couple of us where standing on the back porch when about a quarter mile away we saw a small funnel form, touch down, and work it's way left to right across a field for a couple hundred yards and dissipate. The problem with this story? We all stood there and said "That's cool," instead of hightailing it to the cellar. We later learned the alarms in Wichita proper (a few miles away) had all gone off. There was no icky green sky before or after, nor was the weather otherwise stormy.

2. At my parents house, I noticed that the sky was getting greener and greener. There had been storms on and off and I had watched two fronts moving across each other. I decided to step outside and looked straight up. The two fronts, a whirling of clouds, and I swear the beginnings of a funnel. Fortunately, it dissipated very quickly. All told, it was maybe a few tens of seconds, tops.
 
I read recently that the house exploding from the pressure differential is urban myth. It takes 2 psi of overpressure to blow out a standard window which, if I calculate correctly, would require an almost instantaneous drop of around 140+ millibars. The fastest drop ever detected was one of 100 millibars, which is around 1.5 pounds, in the core of an F4 and it still took 60 seconds to do that. What happens is that the wind get in through some weak point. In the case of roofs, the wind gets up under the eaves and peels it off. Our experience in Florida with strong hurricanes is that wind usually gets in through the garage where is can attack an interior wall that is made of drywall. Anything more than an F2 is going to hammer a standard 130mph garage door pretty hard. During Andrew, the tornado like vortices that were on the leading edge of the eye wall did a lot of damage by hurling LARGE pieces of debris into buildings. In one instance, an big air conditioning unit was ripped off the roof of a 6 story office building and thrown across two lanes of an elevated expressway into the front wall of a church.
 
Joe, I have heard the myth debunked as well, but I can't say one way or the other that I'm sure one way or the other, either. Definitely something to investigate further.

Everyone is contributing great stories and info here. We can use this discussion to distill our knowledge down to the most relevant and accurate information.
 
I was working for the Florida Department of Insurance in '93 and they sent all of us lawyers down to Miami to ride shotgun on mediation and apply the thumbscrews to recalcitrant insurance companies.:D A lot of damage was caused by wind born debris and the vortices, which were intially mistaken for tornadoes, and a fair amount was caused by houses not being built to code. Andrew was a suprisingly fast moving and relatively dry storm, but for two weeks afterwards, Miami had its typcial monsoon rains, so most of the water damage was done after the fact by rain getting in threw busted up roofs. The Burger King building was gutted because once the windows on the side facing the ocean were broken out by debris, the wind got in and blew everything out the back side. There were a number of low rise office building that had the stucco and large chucks of the concrete sheathing peeled off the sides. Andrew has become a textbook storm because it was so compact and strong. It was originally classified as a Cat 4, but once the meteoroligists figured out what had happened with those vortices, the reclassified it as a 5. Everything I read leads me to belive that Andrew was a weaker version of the very compact Cat 5 that hit the Keys in 1935. That still holds the record for lowest pressure ever in a hurricane and the barometer that took the reading was blown off the wall shortly after that reading was taken. Gilbert may still be the strongest ever, but Katrina got pretty close before it weakened in the Gulf.
 
good thread Brian. Thor scares the Hell outta me, I've been in some bad ones, and still shake at the thought, but I was going to say, if you all survive a close strike and know which tree it hit, nows a good time to break out your chopper, inside that tree is a petrified piece of wood, that usually runs $1,000 an inch, and If you can't find anyone local to buy it, pm me and Ill get ya hooked up.
 
Someone metioned Tornados,

When I was about 2, in 1968, before RADAR and all the storm watching.

We lived in Illinois, SW of Chicago and storm came through. In the night it picked up myDad's 56 chey C-60 moved ahead about 6 or 10 feet right through the garage door it was parked in front off. The truck had a stock rack and a tarp over the top, that must have helped the vacuum pick it up off the ground. No other building damage. other house got tore up. Dad was a carpenter and always thougt it was funny when other builders tried to save money by scimping on nails.

South of where we live now a town called Gas. Ark I think got tornadoes in Feb. One family was killed when there trailer was hit, In a town east of us I forgot the name but east of West Plains, Mo, a lady found a High School year books of the man that was killed, It had his name printed on the cover. The tornado carried the yearbook about 70 miles according to the news. That makes you think alittle. Pat
 
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